17 Tue

18 Wed

20 Fri

The notion of an “organic city” that is the result of a bottom-up building process by citizens instead of grand, top-down urban design is as old as the planning profession itself and has fascinated writers such as Camillo Sitte, Christopher Alexander, and Bernard Rudolfsky. The success of open-source software development has given these ideas new buoyancy. Can we draw lessons from Linux development for urban development? Can we compare the way we deal with land—a scarce resource—to how we deal with ideas?

21 Sat

Urban Speculation is dedicated to new visual perspectives on the city facilitated by computer vision, computational photography, and the ubiquitous proliferation of image sensors in all kinds of devices. Based on cutting-edge imaging techniques, we will explore a new visual logic of the city.

22 Sun

Lab Team Member Carlo Ratti introduces the topic of the day, Scripted Spaces. This term, originally coined by Norman Klein, refers to the narratives that take place in the urban environment. Today we look at the question of who creates these narratives and the process through which they emerge.

24 Tue

25 Wed

26 Thu

How have digital networks transformed the way we organize cities? How can technology be used to stimulate a more participatory civic body? Today we discuss new models for governance that challenge the traditional practice of top-down bureaucracies; models that leverage recent design and technological developments for creating a more transparent and collaborative local government.

27 Fri

Maps and plans show the city as a geometric pattern in Euclidean space, in which shapes and distances are nonambiguous. However, in our daily lives we experience cities differently. The way we perceive the city is based on its sensory qualities and on our own cultural preconceptions. Explore how new technologies are transforming the way we understand, design, and ultimately live in cities.

28 Sat

How would our society look if buildings were not permanent—if they could break apart every few months? What would be the consequences for ownership? Would our cities be better if we could quickly undo the physical consequences of bad decisions? Temporary Architecture will examine structures that are meant to exist only for a limited amount of time.